The ewoks from 1983’s “Return of the Jedi” were largely responsible for cooling my passion for the original “Star Wars” franchise. Cute and mischevious to a teeth-grinding extreme, they appeared to have been created by toy designers, who then sent the prototypes to the movies’ FX team. Ugh. (That’s “ewokese” for “fuckin’ bullshit”).

At the time, I didn’t realize ewoks were capable of terrorizing cute and mischevious morning talk show hosts. I have a newfound respect. As we wave Halloween ’09 bye-bye, catch a glimpse of last Friday’s “Today” show segment featuring Al Roker, Ann Curry, and the world’s lamest Halloween craftslady. The ewoks provide hilarious non-verbal commentary (throwing a pencil at the Yoda “silhouettes” and a hot dog at the craftslady) before totally pissing off Curry and making sweet sweet love to one of Roker’s gams.